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East Lancs nurse told patient she would floor her, court told

A NURSE yelled ‘if you cause a scene I’ll .... floor you’ at a patient in a busy hospital waiting area, a hearing was told.

Siobhan Wright lost her temper when the vulnerable woman struck her carer across the chest in A&E at Royal Blackburn Hospital.

Wright was employed by Calderstones NHS Foundation Trust, based in Whalley, East Lancs, caring for mental health patients.

The woman was taken to the hospital on February 27 last year because she had a swollen knee. But she became angry when a doctor told her they couldn’t do anything about it.

Wright was called from Calderstones to assist with the woman but she started shouting at the patient in the waiting area.

Matthew East, a security guard who witnessed the incident, said the patient was completely calm by the time Wright arrived.

He said: “She just kept crying and apologising to the carer she had hit, she kept crying and saying she didn’t mean to do it.

“The other two members of staff arrived, they picked her up under the arms and the patient said ‘you don’t need to restrain me’.”

Wright said ‘If you cause a scene I’ll ... floor you’ within earshot of people waiting to be treated, the hearing was told.

Mr East added: (Wright’s comment) was said in an aggressive manner, there was clearly no need for it, especially in a waiting area.

“They pretty much walked into the cubicle, picked her up under the arms and started dragging her out.”

Susan Wrathall, the Calderstones nurse who conducted and internal investigation, said that ‘flooring’ someone was not a technical term for any specialist restraint and added that the staff had a range of restraints they used on patients, but would always start by talking to them.

During the internal investigation, Wright denied she lost her temper with the patient.

Ms Wrathall said: “She was adamant that she hadn't said it, and she was given every chance to withdraw her denial.”

She added that the patient had been very embarrassed and upset by the affair, and didn’t report it until she was approached by the trust’s management. Wright, who now works as a nurse in a care home for elderly people, was not present or represented at the hearing in London, but spoke to the panel over the phone.

She said she had denied the charges at first because she was scared.

She said: “The more I reflected on it, the more I knew that it wasn’t right.

“I should have offered the patient choices rather than me deciding what that choice would be.”

If her fitness to practice is found to be impaired by reason of her misconduct, she could be struck off.